One Panel, Many Chairs
The session was titled “From Cross-Border Payments to Tokenized Deposits,” and the lineup on the slide said more than the title did. A floor-level photo shared by $XRP Ledger Foundation director Hussein Zangana, better known as Vet, showed representatives from Kbank, Kyobo Securities, Woori Bank and Jeonbuk Bank on stage.
The event ran at the Grand Hyatt Seoul during Korea Blockchain Week, with Ripple President Monica Long and RippleX senior vice president Markus Infanger on the speaker list. The organizers said the event grew from 3,000-plus attendees last year to more than 5,000 this year, and Bitcoin.com News flagged late last month that the agenda for the proceedings was set to be tokenization-heavy.
The Bank Behind Upbit
Kbank is the internet-only lender that serves as the sole banking partner for Upbit, which is why the bank grew from roughly 2 million users in 2020 to 15 million by the end of 2025. Kbank signed with Ripple in April of this year and the two have already verified a wallet app-based remittance system and moved to a second phase that tests onchain transfers to countries such as the UAE and Thailand, using Ripple’s Palisade wallet software.
